The Cursed Wombs: Death Paintings had been… defective. However, that was over a hundred years ago, when Kenjaku had sought to create something unique, something powerful. The first objective had been successful in that regard, for they had been unique. They were not fully curses, neither were they fully human, existing in that liminal space between life and death.
Kenjaku, as Noritoshi Kamo, had used the nameless woman as the perfect test subject, and with her unwilling aid, he had crafted and created miracles. Nine abominations born of suffering, each one a testament to his genius and cruelty in equal measure. The problem came down to the second goal of their creation, for while they had been unique, only three were worthy of being called powerful, and in that era, none of the three were anything of note.
However, their creation had not been a waste, regardless of the fact that Kenjaku had disposed of them like failed experiments. He had learned from their creation, catalogued every variable, every genetic marker, every cursed energy signature. It was with that knowledge, as well as an in-depth understanding of the nameless woman that birthed them, that he was able to create Itadori Yuji. In principle, they were related in some way: twisted siblings born of the same methodology but different approaches. It had been his seed that had grown in the nameless woman's womb, and it was his womb this time that birthed Itadori Yuji.
Like all things that were his, they returned to him. The wheel of fate always spun back to its beginning. He glanced at the vials before him, each one containing a fragment of his past ambitions. Of the nine fetuses, only one stood before him now, carefully selected from the refrigerated storage where they had waited in suspended animation. The one that spoke of power and strength, of curse and blood, of real and fake. The eldest and the most aware.
Kenjaku cradled the vial with care, then moved forward with purpose. Strapped to the bed before him was an unconscious, nameless sorcerer. At least, Kenjaku had not bothered to learn the name. Names were for those who mattered, and this one was merely a vessel, a means to an end. For what he wanted to do, he could've used anybody. Even a regular person would've been enough to incarnate his… first child.
However, he decided against such mediocrity. A meeting had been set up with those capricious bastards, which was saying something. Kenjaku was not used to beings more capricious than him: creatures whose whims could reshape reality on a scale that even impressed someone of his experience. However, he had little choice in the matter. Gojo Satoru's overwhelming presence required extreme measures to deal with, strategies that went beyond conventional warfare.
So to attend the meeting, he would need to meet them with the full weight of his allies, every advantage at his disposal. Thus, he had made sure to use a prime body: a sorcerer from the Kamo clan, one that Mahito had modified further to ensure premium moldability, enhanced cursed energy usage, and optimal compatibility.
The irony was not lost on him. Using a Kamo clan member as a vessel for a Death Painting, his own twisted progeny created under the Kamo name. Poetry in motion.
Kenjaku stood before the strapped figure, then dipped his hands into the vial with care. The preservation fluid was warm to the touch, alive with cursed energy that had been building for over a century. He came up with a wriggling fetus, its form both pitiful and terrible. The aborted child struggled in vain to escape his grasp and slip back into the soothing liquid that had protected and nourished it for over one hundred and fifty years. Its tiny fists clenched as if already understanding the cruelty of existence.
"You have slept for long enough," Kenjaku started, his voice carrying the weight as he lowered the still-wriggling fetus over the head of the unconscious man. "Wake up, Choso. The world has changed, and it needs its monsters once more."
He dropped it into the vessel's open mouth.
The transformation was immediate and violent, a thing of destruction and rebirth that would have driven lesser minds to madness.
When he began to train Mahito, the childlike curse had been plagued with the fundamental question that haunted all existence: what came first, the soul or the body? What truly held precedence over the other? The special grade curse had come to learn the answers to those questions after experimenting on dozens of the foolish humans that came to the forest seeking death's embrace. However, if he hadn't already discovered the truth, the image before him would've made the answer crystalline in its clarity.
The soul was the architect. The body was merely its canvas.
The sorcerer's body convulsed as cursed energy erupted from every pore. His cursed energy swelled exponentially, growing by more than double in mere seconds, before exploding its way into special grade territory, and still it swelled, reaching heights that made the air itself scream. The unerring harmony between the ancient soul and the stolen body bolstered its strength beyond what either could achieve alone. This was less incarnation and more rebirth through annihilation.
The soul began to finally settle in, and the clearest sign of that integration was the flesh reshaping itself with sickening cracks and tears that echoed through the chamber like breaking bones. The vessel's skeleton elongated and compressed in places, muscles swelled and redistributed mass, and the very essence of what made the original human began to dissolve, to transform as the body changed to perfectly reflect the new soul's true nature. Organs shifted, blood vessels rerouted themselves, and even the nervous system rewired itself to accommodate its strange new owner.
Kenjaku watched with clinical fascination as his eldest "son" took form, his eyes bright with the fervor of a creator witnessing his masterpiece come to life. This newfound desire to call his experiments his children could only stem from Kaori's Maternal desires. He was still unsure of how he felt about it, yet the advantages of the body made him hesitant to discard it so quickly.
He focused once more the moment the convulsions finally ceased, and when the last echo of transformation faded, Choso opened his eyes.
They were dark, tired eyes: eyes that had seen too much across a century of suspended animation. His newly formed body was lean but powerful, unmarked and pristine, unlike the previous owner who had borne scars across his midsection and calves, no doubt remnants of careless encounters with curses. The vessel's imperfections had been erased, leaving only perfection behind. There was only one mark on Choso's face now.
A blood-red horizontal tattoo that crossed his nose like a brand. Dark hair fell across his face in uneven strands, framing features that bore an unsettling resemblance to both Noritoshi Kamo and the nameless woman who had borne him.
"Welcome back to the world of the living," Kenjaku said, his voice carrying false warmth that couldn't quite mask the satisfaction beneath. "My dear Choso."
Choso sat up slowly, his movements deliberate and measured, as if testing the limits of his new vessel. He examined his hands with wonder and revulsion, flexing fingers that felt both familiar and foreign, remembering phantom sensations from a body he'd never truly possessed. The memories must've come flooding back in waves: the experiments, the endless pain, the decades of floating in that preserving solution, aware but unable to act, unable to scream. He snapped angry eyes at Kenjaku.
"You…" Choso's voice was rough, unused, and uncertain, each word scraped from a throat that remembered screaming without sound. "Who are you?" His words carried a hint of accusation sharp enough to cut.
Kenjaku had debated denying it, considered the elegant lies he could weave around this moment. It was not beyond his power to manipulate the freshly incarnated half-curse, half-human before him. However, he was acutely aware that Tengen had let his tongue loose about certain truths. Coupled with the recent attack on the school, it meant that Jujutsu society as a whole had a firmer grasp of his identity. With that knowledge in their hands, if they bothered to make even the slightest attempt at investigation, his fingerprints across history would be revealed, including his presence as Noritoshi Kamo and all the scientific progress that name entailed.
It was past the time of hiding behind masks and assumed identities. Now he had to own his legacy, but twist the narrative to fit his current needs. truly it was fortunate that the first face Choso was seeing belonged to Kaori Itadori. A disarming face that would put the overgrown child on the back foot before he could fully process the situation.
"Created, nurtured, preserved," Kenjaku corrected with a slight smile that never reached his eyes. "I am your mother and father, in every sense that matters."
There was a sudden tension in the air at the word 'father. Kenjaku's eyes narrowed as he felt the change, watching as the word 'father' hung in the space between them like poison waiting to be swallowed. Choso's expression darkened as more memories surfaced: memories of his brothers, of the woman who had truly birthed them, and the agony she had endured, of the screams that echoed through medieval laboratories. His cursed energy began to spike, blood manipulation technique stirring instinctively to life.
"I remember you." The words fell from Choso's lips with the weight of absolute certainty.
Kenjaku blinked in genuine confusion, his composure cracking for just an instant. That was impossible. The Death Paintings had always been fetuses, never allowed to develop beyond that stage. He had made sure to abort each and every one of them before they could be born, before they could witness the world with their own eyes. Was Choso claiming he recognized him, his cursed energy signature, from even before his abortion? The implications were staggering and deeply troubling.
"Father?" Choso's laugh was bitter, and sharp. His hand gripped the metal slab his body had lain upon, naked and vulnerable, the steel beginning to buckle under the pressure of his newfound strength. "You used her. Tortured her. Experimented on her body and soul until she begged for death's mercy. Made us into what: experiments? Weapons? Trophies of your genius?" His voice rose with each word, carrying the weight of pain.
"Yet that was not your greatest sin. At the end of the day, you discarded us. Threw us aside like broken toys, locked up and rendered useless for a hundred and fifty years. For a hundred and fifty years, we knew only silence, pain, and the presence of each other: no light, no hope, no escape from the prison of our own consciousness!"
Kenjaku's smile didn't waver, though his mind churned rapidly, taking in the implications while spinning up strategies to navigate past the man-child's defenses. Choso was too aware, far too aware of the real him and his history. This meant that attempting compassion and false kindness would be a waste of valuable time and energy. He switched tactics immediately, projecting power and strength instead: the only language that creatures like Choso truly understood.
"I made you into something greater than human, greater than curse," Kenjaku replied, his voice hard. "You should be grateful for the gift of existence I bestowed upon you. Without me, you would be nothing, less than nothing."
"Grateful?" The word came out as a snarl, animalistic and raw with fury. Choso rose from the bed, his newly incarnated body moving with fluid grace as the metal was compressed and warped beneath his clenched fist, leaving permanent impressions in the steel. "Where are my brothers? Eso? Kechizu? The others whose names you never bothered to learn? What did you do with them while I was trapped in that hell you created?"
"Safe," Kenjaku said simply, producing another vial from the depths of his robes with theatrical flair. Inside, a smaller fetus floated in the familiar preservation fluid. "All eight of them. Waiting patiently for the right moment, the right vessels to house their magnificent potential. They will be incarnated as you were, reborn into prime vessels carefully selected for compatibility. It would be simple enough to request such bodies from the Kamo clan, owing to my… historical connections with them."
Choso's eyes fixed on the vial with a desperate intensity that bordered on madness, as if he could reach through the glass and embrace the sibling within. No doubt he could sense them: faint but undeniably present, the cursed energy signatures of his family calling out to him across the void. They were alive, if such a term could be applied to their current state of existence, suspended between being and nothingness.
"Let them go," Choso demanded, cursed energy coalescing around him like a crimson aura. "They've suffered enough. We've all suffered enough for your ambitions."
"Have they?" Kenjaku tilted his head with mock curiosity, studying his creation's character like a scientist examining a particularly interesting specimen. The overprotective big brother archetype: it was almost touching in its predictability. Already, Kenjaku was formulating ways to weaponize that characteristic in his favor, and the words that flowed from his lips were calculated to reinforce that vulnerability. "Or have they simply been… waiting? Waiting in patient anticipation for their big brother to wake up and fulfill his purpose? To guide them into this new world, to be the leader they've always needed?"
The air in the room grew still as Choso seemed to consider those words, his expression cycling through emotions too complex for simple categorization. Kenjaku's smile widened at what he perceived as progress. Then his expression froze as suddenly the room became thick with killing intent and cursed energy so dense it was nearly visible.
Kenjaku could see it in the way cursed energy reinforced his son's body, in the way blood from his torn palm, where his grip had unconsciously tightened enough to pierce flesh, floated and hung suspended in mid-air like crimson balls.
"My purpose isn't to serve you," Choso said, taking a step forward that cracked the floor beneath his feet. "My purpose is to protect my family from monsters like you."
"But I am your family," Kenjaku replied smoothly, feeling the conversation slipping away from him but refusing to show weakness by backing down. "Your creator, your progenitor, the closest thing to a parent you'll ever know. And right now, I need your strength. There are… complications in my way. The Honored One with his sheer power, the Malevolent Eyed One with his unpredictability, and the boring, stagnant society that persists only through the sheer force they wield. Help me deal with these existential threats, Choso, and your brothers will join you in reshaping this new world."
"And if I refuse?"
Kenjaku's smile finally faded for the first time since the incarnation began, replaced by something cold and terrible. Kaori Itadori's face could become wonderfully apathetic when he willed it, and somehow, her features could always make expressions more chilling than any mask he'd ever worn.
"I am your beginning and, if necessary, your end. They shall remain as they are. Forever. Conscious but trapped, aware but helpless, existing in that liminal space between life and death for eternity. You of all people should understand how… unpleasant that existence can be. What sort of big brother would you be if you simply turned your back on them when they need you most?"
If he could not inspire love, he would cultivate fear. Fear was often more reliable anyway.
The threat was crystal clear, and it struck directly at Choso's greatest vulnerability: his unconditional love for his siblings.
Appealing to reason towards someone so fully embraced by his rage. Kenjaku knew what was coming even before Choso comprehended his actions. Without warning, without even the slightest telegraph, Choso struck.
He snapped his hands together with explosive force, and the blood he had been accumulating immediately erupted outward and shot forward like a crimson spear, Choso racing directly behind it. He could not give Kenjaku even a split second to breathe, to think, to formulate a counter-strategy. He used the cuts in his hands to shape twin knives from his own lifeblood, hardening them to diamond-like sharpness before lunging after his initial attack with the fury of a man who had nothing left to lose.
"Piercing Blood," Kenjaku mused with genuine appreciation as he observed the predictable but well-executed assault. Perhaps if Choso had been given more time to acclimate to his new body, even just an extra day to adjust, the attack would have been faster, more refined, more dangerous. As it was, Kenjaku found himself fighting against a child experiencing movement for the first time, wielding both cursed energy and physical form with raw power but without the refinement that came from experience.
"Excellent technique. It looks like making sure to get you a body from the Kamo clan was truly the best decision."
The next second, gravity increased a hundredfold throughout the chamber, an invisible force that turned the air itself into crushing weight. The spear of blood Choso had launched, along with the newly incarnated sorcerer himself, was driven straight into the ground with tremendous force. His head impacted the floor hard enough to crack the reinforced concrete, leaving spider-web patterns of destruction radiating outward from the point of impact.
"However, you're a hundred years too early to challenge me in combat," Kenjaku observed with clinical detachment. He could see the precise moment when realization of the vast power gap struck Choso like a physical blow, yet the newly incarnated sorcerer refused to surrender. Kenjaku watched with curious eyes as not just cursed energy flowed through Choso's body, but the incarnated sorcerer began instinctively reinforcing himself with blood manipulation as well, increasing his physical capabilities twofold. It was still nowhere near enough to allow him to stand under Kaori's Anti-Gravity System at full power, but it was sufficient to prevent most of the potentially fatal damage that applying such tremendous force against a body pressed toward the ground would normally cause.
Six seconds passed, and the increased gravity disappeared as suddenly as it had manifested. Choso moved again immediately, staggering to his feet in a desperate attempt to continue the confrontation, but Kenjaku had seen more than enough to satisfy his curiosity about his creation's capabilities.
"Enough," Kenjaku said, raising one hand. That same hand clasped tightly around the vial containing Choso's brother, fingers positioned so that even the slightest additional pressure would cause the glass to shatter. A hairline crack had already formed across the surface under his grip.
Choso froze mid-motion, his next attack aborted as completely as if he'd been struck by lightning. Kenjaku watched with satisfaction as the sight of his sibling, trapped, helpless, utterly dependent on his mercy, extinguished Choso's rage like water poured on flame.
"That's better," Kenjaku continued, allowing approval to color his tone. "Now, let me explain the situation with the clarity it deserves. I don't need you as a slave, Choso. Slaves are for simple tasks, and what I require is far more complex. I need you as an ally, a partner in reshaping this world. Help me eliminate these existential threats, and I'll not only free your siblings from their liquid prisons, I'll give you the power to protect them forever."
Choso remained silent, his gaze focused squarely on the vial in Kenjaku's hands like a man watching his entire world balanced on the edge of destruction. His mind raced through possibilities, scenarios, desperate plans that all ended in the same impossible conclusion. He didn't trust Kenjaku, he couldn't trust him after witnessing firsthand the depths of his cruelty. But the threat to his brothers was undeniably real, and his options were limited.
"What do you need me for?" Choso's voice was carefully controlled, rage held back and bound by fear for his siblings.
Kenjaku's smile returned, though his grip around the vial remained threateningly tight. "I will be entering into negotiations soon," he replied, his tone annoyed. "Negotiations with entities I would rather avoid, yet circumstances force my hand nonetheless. Your presence, your unique nature as a Death Painting, existing between life and death, human and curse, would give me considerable credibility, a proof of concept you see, especially as I make my offers during those delicate discussions."
"And after these… negotiations?"
"After?" Kenjaku's smile widened. "The great experiment."
It was a devil's bargain, and Choso knew it with absolute certainty. Kenjaku knew that he knew, could see the recognition in his child's eyes. But as Choso's gaze returned to the vial containing his sibling, as he weighed the life in that container against his own pride and desire, Kenjaku knew his victory was assured. At the end of the day, there had never been a true choice, only the illusion of one.
"I'll help you," Choso said finally, the words tasting like poison on his tongue. "But understand this: the moment I sense treachery, the moment you threaten my family or break our agreement, I will kill you. Power difference be damned."
Kenjaku's smile widened, becoming something cold and terrible that belonged more on a corpse than a living face. "I wouldn't expect anything less from my eldest son. Your protective instincts are admirable, if ultimately futile. Now come. We have powerful beings to meet, ancient entities who have waited far too long for this moment, and they don't appreciate being kept waiting."
As they prepared to leave the chamber, Choso cast one last around. Already, Kenjaku could read the thoughts racing through his incarnated son's mind: this subservience was only temporary, a strategic retreat rather than genuine surrender, at least till he could get a hold of the remaining death paintings. But Kenjaku didn't need it to be anything more than that. Temporary was sufficient for his current plans.
"Who are these people we're going to meet?"
Kenjaku smiled and replied, "Some of the few things on this planet that can still make either Gojo flinch."